Today in Supreme Court History: November 26

Keyes v. United States, 109 U.S. 336 (decided November 26, 1883): lieutenant’s suit for back pay dismissed because he was validly court-martialed (one of the judges, his C.O., was a main witness, but he didn’t object at that time) and because President’s appointment of his successor terminated his commission (a smaller Army in those days)

Nitro-Lift Technologies v. Howard, 568 U.S. 17 (decided November 26, 2012): objection to non-compete agreements involved federal law (Federal Arbitration Act) but was matter for arbitrator in first instance (Oklahoma Supreme Court had tried to rest its decision on Oklahoma law as to enforceability of such agreements)

Palmer v. BRG of Georgia, 498 U.S. 46 (decided November 26, 1990):  Do bar review companies form a cartel in violation of the Sherman Act?  The Court here says: Yes!  At my law school they seemed to be in competition but that might be illusory. (Full disclosure: I was a BarBRI rep, but it was because I was sleeping with the previous year’s rep.)  Here, former law student sued after companies agreed that one of them would not compete in that state (Georgia).  The Court relied on United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 1940, where oil companies agreed to temporary buys to keep oil prices up (that case was more famous for Douglas’s footnote 59 which said price fixing was per se illegal regardless of means to do so or existence of overt act).